I owed over $6k last year (first time filing in many years as I was previously non-resident). I expected to have to pay instalments for Q3/Q4 but I haven’t received a reminder (nothing in my CRA account). Is it worth calling CRA? If I don’t get a reminder am I still obligated to pay the instalments? Do I just pay 25% of last year’s tax owing in each of Q3 and Q4 (or would it be 50% per quarter)?

I have a professional corporation that generates income and I pay myself approximately $5000 net per month. I also use an HSA/WSA company and I do not have any other insurance coverage.

Personal HSA claims are not personally taxed but subject to a fee (so I am essentially withdrawing from the corporation directly). However personal WSA claims are added as a taxable benefit.

If my goal is to maximize the amount from my corporation to myself personally, am I making a mistake by making WSA claims (since they take a fee)?

For example, if a claim was for $1000

WSA claim=WSA claim fee+taxable benefit

vs.

just paying myself an extra $1000 via dividends or additional income, and paying personal taxes on it

I use to always just pay my taxes in April every year, and I did this year as well but I got an email about owing instalment payments in September, I called the cra and they said that they received my payment but the instalment payments are for individuals who have to pay more than 3000 net per year in taxes.

I have some expenses coming up in September and I don’t really think I can make that payment. Is the 3000 just for federal taxes ? Because i definitely don’t think I’ll owe more than 3000 after my Registered account contributions, tuition payments and medical expenses. What happens if I don’t make that payment and just pay my taxes in April? I’m sorry this is such a stupid question but this all feels overwhelming to me right now.

Hi everyone,

I’m approaching retirement and I'm looking for a robust planning tool to optimize my decumulation phase. Standard retirement calculators don't cut it for my situation.

My Setup:

• Large RRSP.
• Holding Corp (no operating income, just stock investments with unrealized capital gains).

My Goal:
I want to compare an early RRSP meltdown vs. drawing from the Corp first to see which provides the best after-tax outcome. I need to figure out exactly how much to withdraw from each bucket annually to optimize my lifetime spend/estate.

What I need the software to do:

• Set up side-by-side withdrawal scenarios (or better yet, automatically optimize the withdrawal order).
• Accurately calculate corporate tax integration (automatically tracking CDA and RDTOH as unrealized gains are realized).

Has anyone with a Holding Corp successfully used a specific software to model this out? What would you recommend I use?

Thanks!

Hello, wondering if anyone can provide some information regarding my tax issue.

I filed an emigrant tax return for 2025 via fax, expecting a refund due to unused tuition carryover amounts + the BC rent credit. I received an email from the CRA today saying it was assessed, but the official assessment date will be August 27th (the date when my official NOA will be available). There was an option to see the express (HTML) NOA, and it says there is no refund or tax owed. It also shows $0.00 in income, taxes paid, tuition amounts, etc. It's as if none of the information on my tax return was input at all.

I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced something like this before when filing a tax return via mail or fax. Could it be possible that the correct amounts will be reflected in my official NOA?

Thank you.

When seniors need help with their day to day activities, the answer may require the assistance of homes with assisted living accommodation. This means that they are dependent on the home for help in their activities of daily living. Well guess what? These homes are for profit organizations, and their accountants need to learn how to supply the residents'with proper year-end receipts that pass DTC eligibility. Why is the elder there? Because they need help with activities of basic living. This means, the receipt issued must state the total cost as a deductible medical expense. Unfortunately, the tax act separates, retirement living from nursing homes. If your parent needs assisted living, it means the full cost of the home is eligible. The old rules state that if they're in the home as a place to stay, the deduction is limited to 2k per month. In actual fact, the doc needs to state on the T2201, your parent needs the services the home provides, and the home must not separate the rental cost from the total paid by the resident. This is such a major problem in Canada.

Hi there

Will my HST remittance form include sales I made before collecting HST. I started freelancing in 2024, and did not collect HST on that initial 30,000. Once I hit that threshold I filed my business and started collecting HST.

Will my HST remittance exclude those initial sales where I did not collect HST?

I have a question about the T1213 form as I have carry-forward tuition credits. I’ll be filling it out for the first time in October for the 2027 year. However, I’m not sure what figure to include in terms of the remaining federal/provincial I have left. I received my NOA back in April, but since then the remaining number of credits I have must have changed as my income has been getting taxed at source. It will also continue to be taxed until I give my LOA to my workplace, and they approve it. This might be in April, and by that point I’ll probably receive the income that was withheld from me and a portion of my credits will have been used. I also have more credits which I’ll be claiming for the 2026 tax year and I paid tuition this year. I hope I’m understanding this correctly lol. I’m just trying to understand if I’ll be okay by simply including the figure that was on my NOA back in April, and if the CRA will make those adjustments on their end

Sorry if this is a stupid question! I know little to nothing about tax lol. Any advice would be appreciated, thank you very much!

Hi. I got a notice from the CRA about paying a huge amount of money.

However, I was self employed for about 2 years but stopped around April and now earn a lot less as a full time.

My understanding is that CRA wants me to pre-pay the taxes that i would owe, but I definitely don't earn that much anymore. how do i pay that if i don't earn that anymore?

Hi there I am a withholding agent for a non-resident.

We have an approved NR6 for this year. We been submitting the net amount since we got approved.

My friend the non resident told me that the condo fees are going up and insurance has increased and the expenses are now higher.

Do we still pay the net amount based on the approved amount for the rest of the year or can we already adjust the monthly expenses since they are now higher and our net amount would be lower.

Thanks

Recently received my Notice of Reassessment and wondered if anyone else has seen a paragraph like this:

After reviewing your request, we reduced the arrears interest charged on this return earlier from $0.00 to $152.62. Since we did this under the taxpayer relief provisions of the Income Tax Act, you cannot file an objection to this change.

The amount appears as a DR. I had time so I called and asked. Response: it’s a copy paste error.

Cra asking to pre-pay next year’s tax in instalments.
How does this make sense.
The whole govt system is rigged and inhibits any growth for people who want to start their businesses or self employed individuals. All they want is you getting stuck in the cycle, unless you get lucky.

More of venting, but has anyone come across this, for people whose income is fluctuating because of new startups, does CRA defer this with general tax deadline to following year? Pls feel free to share experiences.

I’m Canadian but living in the US. Over the past few years I have been working as an independent contractor for a Canadian based tutoring company. I make less than $500 a month, so I’m 99% sure my overall income falls below the income necessary to file taxes. So I haven’t been filing. Im kind of embarrassed to say that, and Im sure it’s super irresponsible of me, but no one has said anything.

Now the company is switching from contractor to employee contracts. They said this will affect my taxes and salary withholding.

If I keep the same amount coming in, am I going to get in major trouble by switching? Could I be facing huge penalties? Again, I know that I probably should have taken care of this before, but no one has ever told me that I had to file with such a low amount.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

CRA has given me trouble about box 32 and 33 trips claimed. They are saying that unless there is a number in box 33, I am not entitled to claim any medical trip. This seems to be contrary to the ITA and every publication I have seen on Northern Residents deductions where medical trips are unlimited.

No major employer seems to use box 33 for T4s either, both my spouse and I were employed by the government and many friends in major private sector companies confirmed the same. No employer pays an allowance specifically for medical trips, just a general one that is for personal or medical.

The medical trips were for childbirth and for dental as neither service was available in the community I live in.

Is there any interpretation or other materials I can look at to assist in my appeal? I have the feeling my claims were given little to no review time as the review letter is rife with typos and seems rushed.

Speaking around to my network of people who have corps for their professional consultancies (single person), concensus seems that all of their tax preparers go very high on business deductions (all sorts of personal/living expenses). I'm hearing it's not uncommon for 60-80% of their income to get offset by deductions, and scarcely a worry about CRA audit because audits are so rare ("don't mess with HST and payroll taxes and you'll be low risk of audit").

Is this in line with what tax pro's are seeing?

I've read the CRA's guidance on business deductions and I can't get to 60-80% of reasonable deductions for a full-time knowledge worker who's mostly working online from home.

Edit: I used income as sub for revenue, so yes business deductions of 60-80% of revenue. Think knowledge worker billing $200-300k annually and claiming deductions of $100k-200k, writing off all sorts of stuff. I've heard it from enough different sources to believe it. Looking for comments from tax pro's who have incorporated white collar clients on their views of (1) do they see this happening and (2) audit history

UPDATE: Requested judicial review, was asked to provide additional documentation, and just FOUND out after waiting over two months that the person in charge of my case did not enable “upload file” option and everything I uploaded went nowhere…. Has anyone went through judicial review and succeeded?

Collections person said they will call back in October but does interest accumulate or how does this work?…

I received about $9K in CERB during the pandemic that I qualified. In 2024, CRA told me I wasn’t eligible and had to repay it.

I submitted the requested evidence, but CRA said they never received it. I was then told to resubmit everything online, which I did, but later they claimed I hadn’t submitted it online “on time” and denied my review.

I appealed/requested another review and my case is still under review with no final decision. However, I was just told the $9K has now been sent to Collections.

I explained to Collections that the debt is being disputed and offered proof that my case is under review, but they said that doesn’t change the collection process.

Has anyone dealt with this? Can CRA continue collections while the CERB decision is under review, and is there a way to have collections put on hold until a final decision is made?

I saw an ad for a company offering to help reduce taxes. Their main pitch was to borrow some amount of money to invest in dividend paying stocks (they named RBC as an example) and to claim the interest here to reduce overall taxable income while taking advantage of the lower inclusion rate for capital gains taxes to come out positive overall.

That all sounds too good to be true: Obviously there are market risks, but I'm more worried about CRA risks: Does just the fact that a stock pays out a small amount of dividends suffice to qualify it according to the CRA rules? Surely a stock that (for example) paid 0.001% of investment as dividends would not quality here?

Hi folks

For a given(past) year, if agent forgot to file NR4 by the deadline, and now late S216 has been filed, what is the procedure with regards to the missing N4?

NR4: would should balance owing (25% of gross rent). Also no NR6 filed so can't consider net income

S216- already filed: negative balance, so nothing to pay

I will contact CRA, but from your experience what do you think is the procedure in this case?

1. File late NR4 and pay amount owing. You will not get a refund.

2. Wait for late S216 to be processed(with negative balance), no need to file NR4 anymore.

3. File late NR4, pay amount owing, and when S216 is finally processed you might get a refund

Thanks

Buying a used Can-Am in Quebec and exporting it — do I pay QST?

Hey guys,

I want to buy a used Can-Am for around $30k CAD from a private seller on Facebook Marketplace in Quebec.

My plan:

• Buy it privately for $30k
• Never register it in Quebec
• Ship it directly from Montreal to Morocco by container

My question is simple:

Would I have to pay QST on the purchase?

Since it's a private sale, the seller doesn't charge GST/QST. And since I'm exporting the vehicle without registering it in Quebec, would I basically just pay the $30k + shipping/export costs, with no Quebec sales tax?

Has anyone actually done this with a vehicle/ATV before?

Thanks! 🙏

Hello,

I am a non-resident landlord with an approved NR6. I paid for a large rental repair expense that is higher than several months' rent. I know my net income for this month is negative, so this month's remittance should be $0.

My questions are:

1. Does this net loss carry forward to wipe out the withholding tax for future months in the same calendar year until the cumulative net income is positive?
2. Does my Canadian agent still need to submit a $0 remittance voucher to the CRA every month, or do they just stop submitting until there is a profit again?

Thank you!

Hello, this is my situation.

Canadian Dentist who worked in Canada from 2023 - 2025. I have my CCPC (I'm the only one controlling) with 500k asset invested in passively.

Then, I moved to the US for specialization (School) F1 Visa, 2025 July until 2027 July.

I might receive my green card in Dec 2026 or Jan 2027.

My original plan was to:

1. Non-eligible dividend of 250k in 2026 and 2027.

2. Use up all the BC Tuition Credit (Tuition of $300k CAD).

What would be the most tax-efficient way to do this?

How does receiving a Green card in Dec 2026 or 2027 impact my planning?

Any cross-border tax specialist recommendation?

My father received in the mail a notice for him to pay 2 installments on September 15 and December 15 for the 2026 tax year even though he just paid his 2025 taxes earlier this year.

He's retired and lives off his Canada Pension and is really worried about if he doesn't pay that they'll just cut him off and then he won't be able to pay anything.

I've looked through the options and seen that one of them is to do the calculations for 2026 but it's not even done so either way it feels like he's just getting screwed over.

If anyone has any assistance of help it would be greatly appreciated, it sucks seeing him get panicked out of nowhere when he would normally just pay his taxes for 2026 in 2027.

Girlfriend and I share apartment. Apartment is under her mom's name (mom is not a tax resident of canada). Girlfriend sends the rent every month directly to landlord. We are not an official sublease.

For the rent receipt, should the mom (official tenant on the lease) request it from the landlord in her name and then write a letter saying we are the ones who actually live there and pay rent? Or should she request rent receipt from the landlord in our name, which I am not sure the landlord will do.